The  Churches  and  World  Peace 


The  ^Message  to  the  Churches  of  the  United  States 

from 


The  Tfational  Study  Conference  of  Representatives 
from  Twenty-Eight  Communions 


Northern  Baptist  Convention 
Southern  Baptist  Convention 
Church  of  the  Brethren 
Christian  Church 
Churches  of  God  in  N.  A. 
Congregational  Churches 
Disciples  of  Christ 
Friends  (4  bodies) 


Greek  Orthodox  Church 
Mennonites  (2  bodies) 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.S.A. 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S. 
Reformed  Presbyterian  Church 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church 


Reformed  Church  in  America 
Reformed  Church  in  the  U.  S. 
Salvation  Army 
Seventh  Day  Baptist  Churches 
United  Brethren  Church 
United  Presbyterian  Church 
American  Unitarian  Association 
Universalist  Church 


December  3,  1925 


N every  age  Christians  are  compelled  not  only  to  voice  their  protest  against  the  ex- 
isting order  but  to  point  out  precisely  what  the  spirit  of  Christ  demands  and  to  try 
practically  to  embody  it. 

In  this  effort  to  interpret  and  apply  the  spirit  and  teaching  of  our  Lord,  the  Church,  it  should 
be  frankly  admitted,  has  rendered  a service  whose  practice  has  stopped  far  short  of  its  ideals.  It 
should  be  now  ardently  seeking,  as  it  confronts  present  day  obligations  and  opportunities,  ac- 
tually to  know  the  mind  of  its  Master  and  to  do  whatsoever  He  commands.  We  here  have  sought  the  truth  and 
the  inspiration  by  which  right  decisions  might  be  reached  and  a program  for  peace  be  adopted  which  we  may  ask 
the  Church  to  undertake  with  a vital  faith  and  a conviction  of  victory. 


War  is  the  most  colossal  calamity  and  scourge  of 
modern  life.  It  is  not  inevitable.  It  is  the  supreme 
enemy  of  mankind.  Its  futility  is  beyond  question.  Its 
continuance  is  the  suicide  of  civilisation.  We  are  de- 
termined to  outlaw  the  whole  war  system.  Economics 
and  industry,  social  welfare  and  progressive  civilisation, 
morality  and  religion,  all  demand  a new  international 
order  in  which  righteousness  and  justice  between  na- 
tions shall  prevail  and  in  which  nation  shall  fear  nation 
no  longer,  and  prepare  for  war  no  more. 

For  the  attainment  of  this  high  ideal  the  life  of  the 
nations  must  be  controlled  by  the  spirit  of  mutual  good- 
will made  effective  through  appropriate  agencies.  War 
must  be  outlawed  and  declared  a crime  by  international 
agreement.  The  war  spirit  and  war  feelings  must  be 
banished  and  war  preparations  abandoned.  Permanent 


peace  based  on  equal  justice  and  fair  dealing  for  aii 
alike,  both  great  and  small,  must  be  achieved.  The 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  relations  of  nations  must  be 
established. 

This  stupendous,  difficult  and  urgent  task  challenges 
the  Churches  of  America  and  all  citizens  of  goodwill. 
It  is  a moral  and  religious  as  well  as  an  economic  and 
political  task.  All  the  forces  of  civilization  must  there- 
fore unite  in  this  noble  adventure  of  faith  and  purpose. 

This  Study  Conference,  representing  some  thirty 
Communions,  rejoicing  in  the  many  ringing  declara- 
tions and  constructive  proposals  by  various  religious 
bodies  in  their  official  actions,  presents  to  the  Churches 
of  the  United  States  of  America  the  following  Affirma- 
tions and  Recommendations. 


IDEALS  AND  ATTITUDES 


The  teachings  and  spirit  of  Jesus  clearly  show  that  the  effective  force  for  the  safeguarding  of 
human  rights,  the  harmonizing  of  differences  and  the  overcoming  of  evil  is  the  spirit  of  goodwill. 
Throughout  His  entire  ministry,  in  all  human  relationships,  Jesus  was  consistently  animated  by  this  principle  of 
active  and  positive  goodwill  in  the  face  of  opposition,  governmental  oppression  and  personal  violence.  He  vindi- 
cated  the  life  of  love  and  service  in  the  face  of  suffering  and  trial.  His  constant  emphasis  on  forgiveness,  the  charge 
to  His  disciples  to  love  their  enemies  and  His  prayer  on  the  cross,  “Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do”,  express  and  illustrate  His  spirit  and  method. 


The  Church,  the  body  of  Christ  albinclusive — tram 
Bcending  race  and  national  divisions — should  henceforth 
oppose  war  as  a method  of  settling  disputes  between 
nations  and  groups,  as  contrary  to  the  spirit  and  prim 
ciples  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  should  declare  that  it  will 
not  as  a Church  sanction  war.* 

The  Church  should  not  only  labor  for  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  men  but  should 
give  itself  to  constructive  policies  and  measures  for 
world  justice  and  peace.  It  should  fearlessly  declare 
its  distinctive  message  of  goodwill.  It  should  proclaim 
this  message  regardless  of  fluctuating  opinion  and  po- 


litical exigencies. 

The  Church  should  teach  patriotic  support  of  the 
State,  but  should  never  become  the  agent  of  the  Gov- 
ernment  in  any  activity  alien  to  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
The  Church  should  look  to  the  responsible  statesmen 
of  a Christian  country  to  conduct  the  public  business 
along  those  lines  of  justice  and  reason  which  will  not 
lead  to  war. 

The  Church  should  recognize  the  right  and  the  duty 
of  each  individual  to  follow  the  guidance  of  his  own 
conscience  as  to  whether  or  not  he  shall  participate  in 
war. 


POLICIES  AND  PROGRAMS 


1.  The  fundamental  forces  in  upbuilding  a Chris- 
tian  world  order  are  those  concrete  activities  which  by 
their  very  nature  create,  as  well  as  express,  goodwill 
between  nations  and  races.  Let  the  Churches,  there- 
fore,  be  zealous  in  works  of  international  benevolence, 
be  friendly  to  the  strangers  in  our  land,  and  support 
home  and  foreign  missionary  enterprises  and  institu- 
tions. 

2.  The  Churches  in  all  lands  should  rise  above  the 
spirit  and  policies  of  narrow  nationalism,  and  to  this 


end  they  should  strengthen  the  bonds  of  friendship  and 
mutual  acquaintance  through  common  activities  and 
conferences  such  as  that  recently  held  at  Stockholm  on 
Life  and  Work. 

3.  In  the  achievement  of  world  justice  and  peace 
the  United  States  and  other  nations  will  have  to  re- 
consider those  policies  and  practices  that  tend  to  create 
international  illwill,  suspicion  and  fear.  In  the  enact- 
ment of  legislation  dealing  with  even  domestic  matters 
that  have  international  consequences,  each  nation  should 


*We  draw  a clear  distinction  between  the  use  of  force  in 
police  service,  domestic  and  international,  on  the  one  hand 
and  in  war  on  the  other.  While  force  involves  coercion  or 
physical  control  in  any  case,  the  motive  and  end  of  police 
force  is  fourfold:  it  is  inspired  by  goodwill  for  the  common 
welfare;  it  is  corrective  and  remedial  in  its  nature;  it  is  ex- 
ercised by  neutral  parties;  it  is  strictly  limited  by  law  and  has 
justice  as  its  aim. 

War,  whether  aggressive  or  defensive,  is  the  use  of  organ- 
ized violence  in  a dispute  between  nations  or  hostile  groups. 
Even  though  one  of  the  parties  may  be  guiltless,  it  creates 
hatred,  leads  to  unlimited  loss  of  life  and  property,  and  always 


involves  large  numbers  of  innocent  victims.  In  war  the  par- 
ties directly  concerned  seek  to  settle  the  issue  involved  by 
superior  force  regardless  of  justice.  Usually  war  involves  con- 
scription of  the  individual  conscience  and  a nation-wide  prop- 
aganda of  falsehood,  suspicion,  fear  and  hate.  This  is  modern 
war  in  its  nature  and  processes,  as  our  generation  has  seen  it, 
whether  the  war  be  fought  for  offensive  or  defensive  pur- 
poses. War  is  thus  the  very  antithesis  of  police  force.  At- 
tention is  called  to  the  fact  that  a punitive  expedition  under- 
taken by  one  or  more  nations  on  their  own  initiative  is  essen- 
tially a war  measure  and  not  an  exercise  of  international 
police  force. 


practice  the  principle  of  the  Golden  Rule.  In  this  con' 
nection  we  have  especially  in  mind  such  difficult  ques' 


tions  as 

(1) 

Monopolistic  control  of  raw  materials  essential 
to  modern  industry  and  economic  welfare 

(2) 

Regulation  of  immigration 

(3) 

Race  discriminatory  legislation 

(4) 

Investments  in  backward  countries 

(?) 

Economic  and  social  oppression  of  minority 
racial  groups  within  a nation. 

4.  In  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  Washington 
Conference  on  Limitation  of  Armament  and  in  keeping 
with  the  declaration  by  President  Coolidge  that  “peace 
and  security  are  more  likely  to  result  from  fair  and 
honorable  dealings  ...  than  by  any  attempt  at  compe- 
tition  in  squadrons  and  battalions”,  the  United  States 
should  actively  cooperate  with  the  other  nations  in  still 
further  reduction  of  armaments. 

5.  Plans  for  military  expansion  and  increased  ex- 
penditures in  the  Pacific  are  needless  in  themselves  be- 
cause of  agreements  already  made.  They  are  provoca- 
tive of  suspicion  and  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of 
other  nations,  and  are  contradictory  to  the  affirmation 
of  President  Coolidge  that  “our  country  has  definitely 
relinquished  the  old  standards  of  dealing  with  other 
countries  by  terror  and  force  and  is  definitely  commit- 
ted to  the  new  standard  of  dealing  with  them  through 
friendship  and  understanding.” 

6.  We  rejoice  in  the  policy  of  our  Government, 
adopted  by  the  Washington  Conference  on  Limitation 
of  Armament,  for  cooperating  with  China  in  seeking 
the  early  abolition  of  “extraterritoriality”,  the  adoption 
of  “equal  treaties”  and  the  recovery  of  tariff  autonomy. 
We  urge  the  maintenance  by  our  people  and  Govern- 
ment of  such  attitudes  toward,  and  treatment  of,  China 
and  of  Chinese — and  of  all  Asiatics — as  are  required  by 
the  principles  of  good  neighborliness  and  the  Golden 
Rule. 

7.  The  maintenance  of  justice  and  goodwill  between 
the  peoples  of  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  is  essential 
to  the  peace  of  the  Pacific  and  of  the  world.  We  of  the 
United  States,  therefore,  need  to  scrutinize  with  seri- 
ousness and  care  those  acts  and  laws,  both  local  and 
national,  that  are  straining  these  relations,  with  a view 
to  such  modifications  as  will  conserve  the  essential 
rights,  the  self-respect  and  the  honor  of  both  of  these 
great  branches  of  the  one  human  family. 

8.  We  believe  that  the  United  States  should  exam- 
ine its  historic  policy  known  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
and  seek,  in  cooperation  with  other  American  peoples, 
such  a restatement  of  this  policy  as  will  make  it  a 
ground  of  goodwill  between  the  United  States  and 
Latin  America. 


9.  We  rejoice  in  the  condemnation  of  the  militaris- 
tic spirit  by  the  President  in  his  Omaha  address  and 
record  our  opposition  to  all  efforts  to  use  the  Reserve 
Officers’  Training  Corps,  the  Citizens’  Military  Train- 
ing Camps  and  the  Mobilization  or  Defense  Test  Day 
exercises  as  means  of  fostering  the  spirit  of  war  among 
our  citizens  and  especially  among  our  youth.  We  ap- 
prove all  suitable  efforts  to  improve  the  physical  well- 
being of  students  in  our  schools  and  colleges,  both  boys 
and  girls,  but  we  emphatically  disapprove  of  compul- 
sory military  training.  We  urge  careful  review  of  the 
effect  of  military  training  in  all  its  phases. 

We  deplore  and  regard  as  unnecessary  the  proposed 
organization  of  industry  under  the  Government  in  prep- 
aration for  possible  war.  Such  organization  is  opposed 
to  the  declaration  of  President  Coolidge  that  we  should 
demobilize  intellectually  as  well  as  in  the  military  sense. 
It  would  inevitably  tend  to  promote  the  war  spirit  in 
commerce  and  among  industrial  workers. 

10.  Our  Government,  together  with  all  other  great 
civilized  nations,  should  share  in  common  agreements 
and  in  common  undertakings  and  activities  in  the  es- 
tablishment and  maintenance  of  the  institutions  essen- 
tial for  world  justice,  for  the  peaceful  settlement  of  all 
disputes,  for  mutual  protection  of  peace-loving  and  law 
abiding  nations  from  wanton  attack,  and  for  reduction 
of  armaments  by  all  nations. 

In  this  program  the  United  States  has  an  inescapable 
responsibility  and  an  essential  part.  The  movement  for 
world  peace  cannot  succeed  without  active  participation 
by  both  the  people  and  the  government.  We  therefore 
recommend  to  the  people  of  our  land  the  following 
concrete  measures: 

(1)  Immediate  entry  of  the  United  States  into  the 
Permanent  Court  of  International  Justice,  with 
the  Harding-Hughes-Coolidge  reservations. 

(2)  Declaration  by  the  United  States  that  it  will  ac- 
cept the  affirmative  jurisdiction  of  the  World 
Court  and  will  submit  to  it  every  threatening  dis- 
pute which  the  Court  is  competent  to  settle. 

(3)  Full  cooperation  of  our  Government  with  other 
nations  in  securing  the  negotiation  and  ratifica- 
tion of  an  international  treaty  outlawing  war  as 
a crime  under  the  law  of  nations. 

(4)  Adoption  by  the  United  States  of  the  policy  of 
complete  cooperation  with  all  the  humanitarian 
and  other  commissions  and  committees  of  the 
League  of  Nations  to  which  commissions  and 
committees  it  may  be  invited. 

(5)  Entry  of  the  United  States  into  the  League  of 
Nations  with  the  reservation  that  the  United 
States  will  have  no  responsibility,  moral  or  oth- 
erwise, for  participating  in  the  economic  or  mili- 
tary discipline  of  any  nation,  unless  such  parti- 
cipation shall  have  been  authorized  by  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States. 


RECOMMENDATIONS 


1.  We  rejoice  to  learn  that  twenty-six  Communions 
have  already  formed  their  respective  Commissions  on 
International  Goodwill  and  Peace  and  earnestly  recom- 
mend to  those  Communions  which  have  not  yet  done 
so  the  importance  of  taking  this  step  at  an  early  date. 

2.  We  request  the  Executive  Committee  which  has 
arranged  for  this  Study  Conference  on  the  Churches 
and  World  Peace,  with  such  addition  to  its  membership 
as  it  may  find  desirable,  to  serve  as  a Continuation 
Committee  with  the  following  duties: 

( 1 ) To  secure  promptly  the  publication  of  the  Message 
to  the  Churches  adopted  by  this  Conference  and 
its  circulation  as  widely  as  possible  among  the 
Communions  of  the  United  States. 

(2)  To  invite  each  Communion  to  take  such  official 
action  as  it  may  think  desirable  in  regard  to  the 
affirmations  and  recommendations  of  the  message. 

(3)  To  confer  with  the  Federal  Council’s  Commissions 
on  International  Justice  and  Goodwill  and  on 
Christian  Education,  regarding  methods  of  coop- 
eration and  procedure  in  the  continuing  programs 
of  promotion  and  education  essential  to  the 
achievement  of  the  ends  in  view. 

3.  The  achievement  of  permanent  world  peace  is 
dependent  upon  the  development  in  children  and  youth, 
through  education,  of  convictions  concerning  the  Fath- 
erhood of  God,  the  spirit  and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  unity  of  the  human  family,  and  the  principles  of 
justice;  and  upon  the  establishment  of  attitudes  of  mu- 
tual respect  and  reliance  upon  reason  rather  than  force. 
We  therefore  recommend  that  the  Continuation  Com- 
mittee, in  cooperation  with  the  various  educational 
agencies,  denominational,  interdenominational  and  un- 
denominational, secure  the  preparation  of  an  adequate 
program  of  education  for  the  development  of  these  con- 
victions and  attitudes. 

4.  We  recommend  that,  in  the  development  of  this 
program,  due  consideration  be  given  to  the  results  of 
recent  studies  of  innate  tendencies  in  human  nature  as 
well  as  of  the  molding  influence  of  society  itself  upon 
growing  life. 

5.  We  believe  it  is  possible  to  train  a contempora- 
neous generation  of  children  around  the  world  to  find 


ways  in  which  the  gospel  of  goodwill  can  be  applied  to 
racial  and  international  relationships.  We  therefore 
urge  upon  the  Communions  the  unique  responsibility 
for  world  understanding  presented  through  their  mis- 
sionary relationships.  To  this  end  we  suggest  that  the 
committee  seek  the  cooperation  of  the  missionary  and 
other  agencies  in  the  working  out  of  such  a system  of 
training. 

6.  We  recommend,  further,  that  there  be  recogni- 
tion of  the  mental  attitudes  and  social  influences  in 
present  day  life  which  tend  to  prevent  mutual  under- 
standing and  sympathetic  cooperation  between  classes, 
nations,  and  races,  and  that  programs  of  adult  educa- 
tion and  activity  be  prepared  which  shall  develop  re- 
lationships and  attitudes  which  are  in  accord  with  the 
life  and  teachings  of  Jesus. 

7.  Any  effective  program  of  education  for  peace 
must  be  thoroughly  integrated  with  the  whole  process 
of  education.  We  therefore  urge  that  close  working 
relations  be  established  between  all  the  program-making 
educational  agencies  upon  which  the  churches  depend, 
and  that  the  plans  for  peace  education  be  worked  out 
cooperatively. 

8.  We  recognize  the  strategic  position  of  the  local 
church,  its  pastor  and  Christian  leaders,  in  the  program 
to  end  war,  and  suggest  the  importance  of  forming  lo- 
cal committees  for  peace  promotion  and  education. 

9.  We  recommend  that  every  City  Federation  or 
Council  of  Churches  be  urged  to  form  its  own  Com- 
mittee on  International  Justice  and  Goodwill,  which 
should  cooperate  with  the  Committees  in  local  churches 
in  community  activities  and  programs  in  the  interest  of 
world  peace.  We  would  call  attention  to  the  educa- 
tional opportunities  offered  in  connection  with  the  ob- 
servance of  Armistice  Day,  Golden  Rule  Sunday, 
Christmas,  Goodwill  Day,  and  other  anniversaries. 

10.  We  recommend  the  holding  of  another  Con- 
ference on  the  Churches  and  World  Peace,  when,  in 
the  judgment  of  the  Continuation  Committee,  the  ed- 
ucational program  shall  have  been  sufficiently  carried 
out  by  the  Churches  to  render  such  a Conference  worth 
while. 


CORRESPONDENCE  MAY  BE  SENT  TO 
BISHOP  WILLIAM  F.  McDOWELL,  Chairman 

105  EAST  22nd  STREET  ' NEW  YORK,  N.  Y. 


